The Durant Daily Democrat
Monday, July 11, 2005

‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ awakens love, magic

BY RANDY PRUS

As sure as fireworks on the Fourth of July, the Oklahoma Shakespearean Festival highlights the summer season in the Texoma region.

As part of this year’s festivities OSF presents Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a rollicking comedy of love and misrepresentation, of magic and transfiguration. The story concerns two pairs of lovers frolicking in the Athenian countryside under a full summer moon.

Their search for one another is aided and impeded by mischievous fairies, who lighten the darkness with love issues of their own.

In their midst, and to the play’s comic delight, are a group of country swain attempting to perform a play for the upcoming nuptials of the Duke and his betrothed. The result is delightful fare for a summer night in both the fictional world of Athens and our own southern Oklahoma.

Isaac Walters, the play’s director, offers a beautiful production setting the play against a Chinese backdrop. The exotic aura lends itself to the movement between the world of humans and the fairies’ world. The quickened pace of the play economizes the transformations within the play and heightens the comic moments.

The lovers are superbly cast. Heather Surdukin and Scott Wolz, as Hermia and Lysander, and Natalie Weaver and Thomas Meaney, as Helena and Demetrius, perform their roles with a comic anxiety as they confront the inconstant and eternal nature of love. The women, especially Natalie Weaver, bring the physical comedy to their roles that enhances the play between the fairy world and the world apparent.

The play’s comic energy is made manifest by James Harbour, as Bottom, along with his cohort of “rude mechanicals.”

Harbour discharges his role to perfection as Bottom and his friends mis-perform a play within the play. Len Schlientz as Quince, Chase Jackson as Flute, Edward Karch as Starveling, Mark McClanahan as Snug, and Rockford Samson as Snout complete the comic ensemble and repeatedly draw laughs from the charmed audience. The night’s central moment is when Harbour, as Bottom, is transfigured into an ass by the impish fairy, Puck, played with equal amounts of bravado and lilt by Cody Magouirk. In the figures of Puck and the transfigured Bottom the worlds of love and magic coalesce.

These worlds are held in balance by fine performances by Scott Daigle and Kelsi Karch, as Theseus and Hipplyta (the Duke and his betrothed), and by Nicholas Kessler and Riley Risso, as Oberon and Titania (the king and queen of the fairies). Among them exist a host of dancing fairies and furies, complete with song and hijinks.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a magical romp of frantic escapades, cunning wordplay, and heart-felt romance, brought to fruition quite beautifully by the Oklahoma Shakespearean Festival. It is certainly one of the delights of the summer season.

Credit also needs to be given to the designers: Michael Riha on the set, Donna Meester on costumes, and Ken Friedhoff on lighting, as well as Erin Brown, Heath Gannon and Ronnie Chamberlain on properties, sound and make-up. Their work contributes greatly to the comic and exotic texture of the performance.

The performance continues Thursday July 14 and Wednesday July 20 at 8 PM and closes Sunday July 31 at 2 p.m. in Montgomery Auditorium on the campus of Southeastern Oklahoma State University. For information contact the box office at 580-745-2696